'Happening since 1932': Sunil Gavaskar points out main issue with India's bowling unit

Former cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar was all praise for India's bowling unit which was missing their key players. However, former India batsmen highlighted a key issue that the country's bowling unit is facing since 1932.

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According to Gavaskar, Indian bowlers have struggled to pick up the last few wickets of the opposition quickly. “The Indian bowlers get the first wickets but they struggle to get the last five wickets,” Gavaskar said in the Extraaa Innings show aired on Sony Sports Network after the end of first day’s play in Brisbane.

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Despite reducing Australia to 213 for 5 wickets, Indian bowlers failed to capitalise and a 61-run partnership between skipper Tim Paine and newbie Cameron Green helped the hosts finish the day with 274 runs on board.

“India at least till tea time were controlling the game. If they got another couple of wickets then you could’ve said the day was India’s India had a really good chance of restricting Australia if they had got another wicket but this unbeaten partnership as taken it towards Australia,” Gavaskar said.

Despite the absence of Jasprit Bumrah, Ishant Sharma, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, and Ravindran Jadeja, Indian bowlers managed to put some pressure on the Aussies.

“I think the Indian attack did exceptionally well. When you look at Shardul (Thakur), he had hardly bowled a dozen delivery when he had played his first Test, Navdeep Saini just one Test match old so also (Mohammed) Siraj, T Natarajan, and (Washington) Sundar playing their first games so for all that the first 5 wickets that they’ve taken tells you how much they were committed to the task,” he said.

However, Gavaskar warned the new bowlers about the struggle Team India has been facing since 1932.

“Like it has happened since 1932 when India played their first game in England, they had England’s top five out for a low score and the last five added a lot of runs. So that has been the story of Indian cricket.

“I’m only hoping they don’t struggle as much as 1932 or subsequently and they restrict Australia to maybe 350 or thereabouts,” Gavaskar said.